August 22nd Letter #1

Mi querido familia,

 

Tengo feliz que ustedes estan en el mar y teniendo un buen tiempo. Diga a los Heningers se amo y me lo da gozo a escuchar sus historias de su mision. Gracias por sus oraciones y por su amor. Muchisimas gracias! Se amo todo! Me falta el mar, pero tengo mucho mas.

 

Entonces, el templo me da mucho gozo. Hoy fue mi primer vez para bautizar por los muertos. The first time I've baptized anyone in fact. We do baptisms in Spanish, but sessions in English. It felt so cool to take one of the Elders and baptize him for those on the other side in the presence of the hosts of Heaven. Woah that's a lot of pressure. Pero, it really felt amazing to baptize and I cannot wait to baptize for the living and bring people into the fold of God for this life and the life beyond. I REALLY LIKE BAPTIZING. Otra vez, otra vez es por que yo tengo gozo. Anyway I love the temple here and going every week is awesome. You guys should probably attend too!

 

We found this cool thing we can do with the ladders in our room where they balance on an angle if you stand on it perfectly. It has been the cause of much joy and pain. The record for time is 23 minutes. My record is 4 minutes.

 

All the Elders get along super well and such other than Elder Joseph no le gusta frio. Pero los americanos les gusta frio. Entonces el cuarto es FRIO. Everyone sets all the rooms here to 10 degrees celsius. No one understands room temperature. Haha.

 

So I leave for the mission field on Sept 10, and the CCM/Temple are in my mission. I feel great, better than most. My companion is still a little sick, but he is getting better. Not many of the Elders are adapted to the schedule of the CCM and often fall asleep. I sometimes have drowsiness during computer language study. The chair is too comfy. Um me gusta la comida. Sort of. We have an instruction for the mission field to actually not eat in other people's houses because of sanitation. Sanitation is definitely a problem in DR. Not ridiculous, but a little.

 

We sing and play piano lots in the CCM and its great! The piano isnt great but its close. I sing Brightly Beams a lot, in Spanish its called "Brillan Rayos de Clemencia".

 

For some reason the people here think I'm a Korean. Cada dia, everybody is like "Hey, usted es de Korea no?"... So in Europe and New Zealand I am a Latino, and in latino I am a Korean. Everywhere else I am Chinese. I don't even understand. People liked seeing me do the Haka for them though.

 

Sports are good here, the spanish improves every day and I chat with my companion more and more. We have fun and such. Here we are "ladrones". Thieves. Hehe. I'm not sure what we steal. But it must be something.

 

Anyway all is well and it is going awesome and I really like teaching lessons and trying to use spanish even if it stinks at times. The only thing that bothers me IS PEOPLE STANDING UP TO PEE IN THE TOILET. Living with sisters has corrupted my life, but really the bathroom is super gross. Otherwise all is well and tengo una surprisa! If anything I will convert those people with an excessive amount of smiling.

 

Con todo mi corazon,

Elder Sullivan

P.S Americans are really weird. Haha.